WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT ACTION RESEARCH AND HOW I MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE IT

About Action Research

Action research is the process through which practitioners: Reflect on their professional practice and develop a series of questions or "wonderings", Collect data to gain insights into their wonderings, Analyze their data and read relevant literature, Make changes in their practice based on the new findings of their inquiries, and share those findings with other. Action research is a very powerful and interactive process that when used in an educational setting allows educators to investigate relevant and meaningful topics to them developing a sense of ownership of their knowledge that motivates them to actively participate in the process, thus increasing the chances of implementing their research results, and therefore the possibilities of making a real change that could positively impact schools.

My perspective for it’s implementation

One way I might be able to use action research in my school is by collaborating with the Technology Committee to evaluate the educational impact of the school's participation in the TLC3 program, a learning framework that uses new technologies (iPads) and merges them with challenge-based learning. Specifically, I wonder what would be the program’s impact in regards to three factors. First, the level of involvement and use of technology by teachers. Will teachers embrace the new framework and radically modify their lesson delivery? Or will they do the minimum required by the School District without significantly modify their traditional teaching?  Second, Student’s STAAR scores. I wonder if the implementation of the new learning framework will increase student achievement in the State's standardized test and up to what extent this could be measured. And finally, if the implementation of the program could increase the moral of the students and teachers to attend school. While these are ambitious research targets that I am not quite sure we can implement and measure in their totality, I believe we can narrow down the scope and reach of the research so that we could at least investigate one aspect of each factor during this school year.